Terri Trembath · CBC News · Posted: Jan 14, 2022 5:00 AM MT
Standing at the opening of a weathered and greyed picket fence, looking at a boarded up, run-down house, Stian Rorstad remembers the challenges this place used to pose to clients just inches next door less than a year ago.
“The tenants who used to live here would antagonize the clients and call them names,” said Rorstad, who is the executive director of the Recovery Acres Calgary Society (RACS). “They would hang posters of alcohol and everything so when our clients looked out their bedroom windows they could see these adverts for alcohol.”
So, in the fall of 2021, RACS bought it when it came up for sale.
“We could conceivably see a centre with maybe 30 more beds at least, for women, to meet that need,” Rorstad said.
That need was demonstrated when the organization opened up eight beds on Jan. 1 to anyone who identifies as female, looking for addictions recovery inpatient treatment.
It was a first for the nearly 50-year-old not-for-profit agency.
“We had a wait list of 50 women seeking residential addiction treatment,” Rorstad said.
Click here to read the full article.
Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/stian-rorstad-calgary-recovery-acres-society-racs-1.6314720